Wolf whistles welcome?

Press, 17 May 1984, Page 20

Wolf whistles welcome?

Are women a disappointment to the women’s movement? A National Opinion Poll for an English newspaper suggests that, in Britain at least, a decade of consciousness-raising has produced few changes so far in traditional female attitudes. Asked whether a working wife should give up her job if her husband had to move in the interests of his career, 69 per cent of the poll’s female sample said she should. Even more, 71 per cent, thought that, if both parents worked and a child were ill at home, the mother rather than the father should take time off work. More still, 89 per cent, insisted that a working mother’s first duty was to her children. However, few women any longer believe their place is only in the home: 86 per cent think women with children should go out to work if they want to, and 92 per cent that, if husband and wife both work, both should share the household chores. As for the horrors of male

From ‘The Economist,’ London

chauvinism, 81 per cent of the poll's sample like to have men open doors for them; 84 per cent are not offended by topless pin-ups in newspapers; 92 per cent are similarly not bothered by beauty contests; 70 per cent don’t object

to the use of women's bodies in advertisements for alcoholic drinks and cars. Asked whether they would be offended if workmen whistled at them in the street, a mere five per cent said they would; 53 per cent said they wouldn’t, and 40 per cent told the poll’s mainly female interviewers they would be positively chuffed. British women do not even seem to be worried by sexual harassment. One in 10 of N.O.P.’s sample had no idea what the term meant, only one in three felt it was common, while 63 per cent of those with views on the matter thought that sexual harassment at work often started with some encouragement from the woman; a view supported by the facts that, of the whole sample, only 20 per cent said they had experienced “bottom-pinching, slapping, etc.” — the pollsters wisely left “etc.” unspecified — but of those who did only a third were offended by it. Copyright — “The Economist.”